Prior to this past weekend’s UFC on FOX event, MMAjunkie.com medical columnist and consultant Dr. Johnny Benjamin made his pick for the headliner between heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos.

As talented as Velasquez is, he went with the challenger in the upset.

Why? Dr. Benjamin knows a major surgery and an extended layoff can greatly affect even the best athletes.

* * * *

Cain Velasquez did not look himself during his brief fight with Junior Dos Santos. Did he come back from injury too soon? – Anonymous

I agree that we did not see Cain Velasquez at his best at Saturday’s UFC on FOX event. He appeared slower, a bit tentative, less aggressive and less explosive.

I state these observations in no attempt to disparage Velasquez or to diminish the virtuoso performance of the new UFC heavyweight champion, Junior Dos Santos. Much respect to anyone who can battle in that octagon. Lord knows that I don’t have the ability (or courage) to do it.

Am I surprised in what I saw? No, not at all.

The following comments will not be supported with randomized, double-blinded clinical studies but rather the privilege to observe and work with elite athletes during all phases of good health, injury, surgery and rehab over the past 20 years.

I was asked many times, “Who did I think would win the fight?”

My answer was simple. I would have picked Velasquez if it were not for the more-than-a-yearlong layoff and the fact that this would be his first fight since major shoulder surgery. With that in mind and the considerable skill set of Dos Santos, I favored JDS.

Many months ago, I wrote an article after Velasquez announced that he required shoulder surgery that would result in a prolonged absence from the octagon. I tried to make several key points:

Shoulder injuries in contact/combat athletes of this size (heavyweight and light heavyweight) can be a bigger deal than what is being commonly reported.

Performance for contact/combat athletes at the highest levels is mostly mental, and serious injuries have a funny way of subconsciously getting into an athlete’s head.

There are significant benefits of a tune-up fight prior to championship-level competition.

Sparring (in training camp) despite everyone’s best efforts is not even close to the real thing.

Prolonged surgical layoffs can diminish athleticism.

The response was the usual, “WTF does he know? I heard he isn’t even a real doctor.”
Velasquez has been harshly criticized for not shooting for the takedown and instead taking his chances standing up at UFC on FOX. I believe that these opinions undervalue the effects of major shoulder surgery on a wrestler.
Wrestling takes a phenomenal amount or core and upper-body (shoulder) strength. If an MMA athlete with a wrestling style has any conscious or subconscious questions regarding the integrity of his surgically repaired shoulder, a takedown becomes a challenge. The little amount of hesitation can be the difference between slamming your opponent and ending up in a dominant position – or eating a vicious knee, uppercut or (at best) wasting a great deal of energy battling a good sprawl.

(Basic rule: If you think about taking a shot for a leg, it’s already too late.)

A long post-surgical layoff with healing and then rehabbing is painful, no fun and eroding to one’s timing, speed, quickness, explosiveness and confidence – all characteristics that we commonly lump into the term “athleticism.”

Practice/sparring by definition is not the real thing. No one (at least not the sparring partner) is going full speed out of fear of injury to the “champ.” Unfortunately, if you haven’t seen fight-night conditions in more than a year, it is easy to be slightly overwhelmed with the “speed of the game” and the ferocity of full contact. For these and many other reasons, tune-up fights are extremely important to regain peak performance.

Football coaches always ask the team orthopedic surgeon, “How long until my star running back is 100 percent?” The answer is, “Let me see him get cracked a few times in a real game, and I’ll let you know.” Cutting and changing direction on an ACL reconstruction is relatively easy until full-speed, game-time contact is added.

In combat sports, the fighter’s manager will ask, “When will my fighter be ready?” The answer? “Let me see him/her get knocked down.”

Once he gets knocked down at full speed with bad intentions and bounce right back up, they’re back!

Also, a final thought: The next time Cain Velasquez fights for the UFC championship, he will win. Once he regains his athleticism, he has too much talent to deny for long.

Dr. Johnny Benjamin is MMAjunkie.com’s medical columnist and consultant and a noted combat-sports specialist. He is also a member of the Association of Boxing Commissions’ MMA Medical Subcommittee. Dr. Benjamin writes an “Ask the Doc” column every two weeks for MMAjunkie.com. To submit a question for a future column, email him at askthedoc [AT] mmajunkie.com, or share your questions and thoughts in the comments section below. You can find Dr. Benjamin online at www.drjohnnybenjamin.com, and you can read his other sports-related articles at blog.drjohnnybenjamin.com.

The Latest

Sure, UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey ran through yet another opponent in less than a minute, but that wasn’t the only story that mattered at UFC 190. Relive the memorable moments from Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena.

Since the early days when the sport was anything but a mainstream endeavor, the MMA industry has thrived and survived through various websites, forums and, perhaps most importantly, social-media platforms.

In this week’s Trading Shots, Danny Downes and Ben Fowlkes look at Ronda Rousey’s 34-second victory over Bethe Correia at UFC 190 and try to put it into terms that capture the moment without getting swept away by it.

A total of 26 fighters got their chance to shine on Saturday as part of UFC 190 at Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena. Now that UFC 190 is in the books, it’s time to commence MMAjunkie’s “Three Stars” ceremony.

The man known for cranking submissions to the point of injury added eye-gouging to his repertoire. But is the controversy of Rousimar Palhares too essential to his bizarre, awful appeal for his employers to take any meaningful action against him?